


Ten Songs

by Glinda



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Firefly, Merlin (BBC), Skeletons (2010), Star Trek (2009), Stardust (2007), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Drabbles, F/F, F/M, Gen, canon character death, fragments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten different stories, prompted by ten different songs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Both a Beginning and an End

**Author's Note:**

> From the meme: _Put your iTunes on random and use the first ten songs as prompts._ Each chapter is a different song/prompt, in quite a few different fandoms.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s an equation here, unconventional but effective, Davis isn’t quite sure where he fits into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skeletons fic! Proper fandom of one stuff here, set post-film. Song was _Brothers on a Hotel Bed_ by Deathcab for Cutie

Family, like everything else in life, is a transitory notion. At best it’s a fantasy constructed by people to create a sentimental shell to hang around the practicality of the pack for survival in times gone past. Davis contemplates the ceiling from his position flat on his back on the sofa. The argument needs some work. The pack line of theory might prove an effective one, certainly one that would interest Rebecca for a while. Though reference to sentiment is unwise, given his own unhealthy relationship with one particular familial related fantasy scenario.

From the kitchen he can hear Bennett and Jane as they do the dishes, the rise and fall of their very different voices carrying through, though their words do not. No doubt talking at cross-purposes as usual, an unlikely pairing on the surface yet obvious once you look beneath the surface. Without the text of their always-baffling conversations, the cadence of their voices is almost…soothing. Further away he can hear JoJo talking nine to the dozen to his older sister, still not quite used to no longer having to fill the gap left by Rebecca’s silence. He’s not entirely sure when it stopped being nerve-gratingly irritating and became only a vague nuisance.

Davis abandons his previous line of argument as Rebecca reappears and settles herself in beside him, lying top to toe along the sofa with him. As though they’re eight-year-old siblings sharing a tent and prompting his new line of argument.

“And another thing: ages. They don’t work at all in this scenario, especially for the prescribed roles we have adopted.”

He can almost hear Rebecca’s brain working as she forms her argument and prepares to frame it in suitably circumlocutory terms. Out of the corner of his eye, Davis can see Rebecca’s ridiculous socks and the little tic she always does when she’s come up with a line of argument or insult that she finds to be particularly satisfying. It’ll be a good argument, not one he expects to win easily if at all and he’s looking forward to it. He looks back up at the ceiling and closes his eyes, content.


	2. The Rainbow Speaks in Fractals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River does not see the universe the way others do; she doesn’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was She Talks to Rainbows by the Ramones – I couldn’t resist writing River fic for it.

River knows that the verse did not always look the way it does now to her. She doesn’t really remember what it used to look like to her, but she’s fairly certain it wasn’t quite the same as it looked to anyone else and she finds oddly comforting. Her mind has always been full of equations, now they’re just a different kind of equation: continuity in the face of constant change. For a long time everything felt as though it was made of shattered glass and the only weapon River had was her voice so she had screamed.

Sometimes the shattered glass returns, and she hates that most of everything. She knows she has what Simon calls coping techniques. She can turn violent slaughter into balletic dance, creating art and beauty from brutality and destruction. Simon can say what he likes, but River knows that she has seen the equations that make up the universe and hears the stories the planets and the stars whisper as they fly among them. River knows her place in the universe and that her choices are her own, and no power in the verse could convince her to change a thing.


	3. Tonight (No Such Thing as No One Important)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail travelled space and time, fell in love and saved four thousand and four people; there are worse ways to spend a week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was Tonight by Lykke Li, and it made me think of the Christmas episode. Also about Abigail’s comment that Kastavan nearly left her last day too late. Spoilers for this year's Doctor Who Special.

Abigail never thought she was anyone important, but she still had dreams. She could sing and the fish adored her; that had to mean something, if only a way to make her family’s life better. Then one day she sat in front of her doctor and listened to him tell her about her incurable disease and tell her with the exactness she always found creepy that she had only ten days to live.

After that it’s an easy bargain to make, a way to make her loved ones lives better, a sort of immortality frozen among her beloved beautiful fish.

Then one day there are visitors. The Doctor, young Kastavan, the shark and all the wonders of the universe, a stolen day of adventure and fun.

They keep coming back stealing her days away unknowingly, giving her adventures and friendships she never imagined. She could tell them but she doesn’t, choosing instead to savour these days and adventures. Refusing to think about the days ticking away until the day her door opens and Kastavan is no longer a charming young boy, but instead a handsome young man. That day Abigail is rather too busy falling in love to think about dying; she feels far too alive for that.

She watches Kastavan close the door on her at the end of her second last day and wonders what he will tell the Doctor; what wonders they will think up for her last day. She closes her eyes and dreams of swimming in the clouds with her fish.

Time does not pass for her in her frozen life support, but it seems a very long time. Abigail hopes it is an illusion.

When Kastavan next opens the door, it has been a very long time for him, almost too long she reads in his eyes. She is distracted by the wonders that are in store for her on her last day. She’s going to save the world with a song.

Four thousand and three people are going to be saved by a song, so she forgives Kastavan for hoarding her last day when it means she can do this. Just for the length of this song, she is the most important person on the planet.

Back in Kastavan’s study they find a small present marked simply ‘from Santa’ that turns out to be a book. A famous book back on Earth but almost entirely forgotten here and now. They curl up together on the sofa and take it in turns to read the chapters aloud to each other.

The fire has burned low by the time they finish the book, but neither of them move to stoke it. All day they have rushed around, first saving the world and then trying to squeeze as much as possible into her last day. Both of them painfully aware of her time slipping away from them, now, however, they both seem content to let them slide.

“Don’t let me go,” she says quietly on the edge of sleep and feels his fingers tighten around her own.

“Never,” he responds tiredly, breathing laboured now.

Their lives having finally caught up with each other, they sleep.


	4. Town Called Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a moment bound for nowhere – it just goes round and round

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was _A Town Called Malice_ , set pre-movie for _Stardust_. Dunstan and Tristan gen.

There are many good things about living in a small town. It’s a safe, secure place to raise a child, the work is steady and everyone knows everyone else. There are however just as may bad things about living in a small town, especially when you’re seventeen. Top of the list is something that future teenagers in Wall will come to call ‘small town mentality’. Dunstan has no word for it, but he recognises the frustrations he’s felt since he was that age in Tristan’s words as he stumps around muttering to himself.

He wonders sometimes if people growing up in big cities like Manchester and London feel that was about their hometowns too. If people are just people in all their frustrating parochialism wherever you grow up. He allows himself to think about Una and her rapt fascination for his stories of Wall despite the fabulous circumstances she had grown up in and suspects they probably do.

Dunstan doesn’t know exactly what Tristan’s exclamations of “Ipswich!” relate to but he winces in sympathy none the less. Small minds and even smaller ambitions are something he’s mostly grown accustomed to over the years, but sometimes when he overhears people talking he wants to shake Tristan by the shoulders and order him to get out while he still can. It’s only the thought of the world beyond the Wall and the letter his mother left him that stays his hand and his tongue. There is a whole other world out there waiting for his boy, it will call him when he’s ready.


	5. Young and Wild and Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now our dreams are coming true, through the good times and the bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song in question was Heaven…the DJ Sammy version, judge all you like, I don’t care. Set sometime between seasons 5 and 6 in _Doctor Who_ (Eleventh Doctor observing Amy and Rory, and humans in general, some Amy/Rory)

The strange thing about regeneration is the way it always shakes up his emotions, rearranges the way he feels about things and people. Sometimes he’s terribly cold emotionally, others a bit of a sap and sometimes he’ll appear on the surface to be one when really being the other underneath. His emotions are frankly all over the place in this incarnation. He suspects that his fiercely protective love for Amy is based on having imprinted on small her in the aftermath of his regeneration, but that doesn’t explain the equally protective streak he’s developed for Rory lately. Or for that matter his utter over-investment in the notion of Amy-and-Rory as a couple.

One of the Doctor’s favourite things about travelling with multiple humans is the way they interact in such different and unexpected ways. The way they find common ground despite growing up in completely different centuries and in some cases planets. The way they will manage to develop irreconcilable differences despite being from almost identical backgrounds. They way they always gang up on him without fail.

There are very few things he loves more than sharing the wonders of the universe with someone else; one of those is watching that someone else do the same. Amy is leaning out of the TARDIS door reaching out to the furthest extent of the air bubble to point something out to Rory. Rory in turn is holding very tightly to the doorframe with one hand and Amy’s free hand with the other. The worry is being pushed from his face with the force of Amy’s infectious joy, as he sees the universe through her wonderstruck eyes. The storm they are watching is indeed beautiful but the Doctor has seen it before a dozen times, but it’s the sight of it reflected in Amy’s eyes, that shared joy and wondered reflected back and forth on her and Rory’s faces that takes his breath away now. In a few moments they’re going to want to run off and be messy and human in private about their excitement, but for now he gets to watch and share their joy and excitement. So young and wild and free, a reminder of why he loves humans despite their flaws.


	6. Above It All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Try to understand, it couldn’t last the way you planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was _You Will Rise Again_ by Capercaillie, I’ve not seen the end of Season 3 of _Merlin_ though I am rather spoiled for it, so this is probably a bit AU. Gwen and Morgana friendship, femslash if you squint.

Gwen spends hours in the tower, cleaning Morgana’s wounds, wiping her brow, sometimes just sitting with her while she tosses and turns in fevered dreams. No one seriously tries to stop her. They stop her in the corridor but all they ever manage is her name, sometimes angrily, sometimes despairingly, and sometimes desperately but they subside from her gaze. Gwen doesn’t know what they see in her eyes but not even her own brother can bring himself to finish the sentence.

Uther does not say a word to her. He barely speaks at all but he cannot even meet her eyes. Sometimes Gwen thinks she might hate him more than Morgana ever did. She was charged with Morgana’s care a long time ago and while she remains Gwen will care for her as best she can. They have put her lady in chains, her magic confined by iron, and they call her a monster, and they may be right to – Gwen has seen the terrible things Morgana is capable of, she could not deny it even if she wished to – but if Morgana is truly a monster, then it was Uther who raised her to be that way. Gwen would have him face that, the consequences of his own actions, though she knows in her heart he never will.

Gwen doesn’t doubt Morgana will awake. Every morning she expects to find Morgana gone and is half-relieved when she slumbers still. Instead she hopes that Morgana’s recovery will be long and slow, that she can pull Morgana back from the pit of grief and revenge she is drowning in. Convince her that there can be another way. If she can manage that, convincing the others to let her out will be child’s play.

With or without Gwen’s help, Morgana’s power will rise again and Gwen intends to be at her side this time, to be the voice of reason, the one to tell her to stop when she goes too far. She has failed her friend once; she will not allow that to happen again.


	7. All my dreams torn asunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And every dream is just a dream, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From _Paper Cup_ by Heather Nova. I’ve almost entirely stopped watching this show, yet I can’t seem to stop writing fic for it. Spoilers for the end of _Merlin_ Season 3. Morgana and Morgause gen. [Canon Character Death]

Morgause falls.

Morgana wakes from the dream screaming most nights, but Morgause always comes to comfort her. To reassure her that their plans will be perfect, that they cannot fail, that they have right on their side. Morgana listens to her words and lets Morgause’s hand gentle on her hair comfort her.

“Be careful, sister,” she insists.

“I always am, sister,” Morgause assures her, “these are just nightmares, not true prophesy, they will pass, all you need is to have faith.”

Morgana nods and tries to believe her.

~

On the training ground, they battle hard with swords and shield, never going easy on each other, knowing that they both need to be at their peak for the battles to come. They move with identical grace, reading each other’s intentions perfectly, executing perfect beautiful spins that will cause deadly bloodshed in battle. This is the language they both speak best, movements perfect and fluent like no other. They shout harsh criticism at each other for the slightest slip, knowing that the other’s life may hang on that some day soon. Hearing in every shout the underlying whisper of truth.

“I love you; don’t you dare die.”

~

When Morgause falls, it is just as Morgana dreamt it. She has cried so much over the dreams that there are barely any tears left inside for the real thing, but the grief and rage are no less real. If it is really over then it is over for all of them.

Everything will fall.


	8. Leave this World Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherever I am you’ll always be, more than just a memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was _If I Ever Leave This World Alive_ by Flogging Molly, and how could I resist writing _Stardust_ fic about the sky-pirates and Yvaine for this one.

For a bunch of blood-thirsty sky pirates, Yvaine thinks, they’re quite a mellow lot right now. Tonight they’ve got a fiddle and a squeeze box out, there’s food and drink and dancing. For all their lewd comments she doesn’t feel unsafe here. She’s not sure if its because the Captain has marked her clearly as Tristan’s or that the men are actually considerably more honourable than their Captain thinks them, but now that she’s settled in there’s a good deal more hands coming her way to catch her when she looses her footing than there are seeking to pinch her bottom. She wonders how much their behaviour is every bit as much a performance as their captain’s.

As much as she’s looking forward to getting to Wall so that she can get the terribly dull part of being a birthday present for Tristan’s precious Victoria out of the way and get the Babylon Candle he promised her in return. (And go home, oh how she longs to be home, especially here, so near and yet so far from her fellow stars.) Yvaine thinks she will miss her time on the Caspartine a little, even remember the time fondly. Certainly she will fondly remember Captain Shakespeare with his secrets, his wardrobe and his dreams of England. Tonight she even begins to feel a little fond of young Tristan and his silly quest. He seems different somehow here, as though he were coming into his own. She will be endlessly amused if he ends up having learned to be something approximating an honourable gentleman on a pirate ship.

Yvaine misses home terribly and nothing could make her stay down here forever, but here on the ship with the company and safety its brought, she almost wishes she could have a little longer here.


	9. All Things Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Afterwards, Cassie drove to Chicago, in a van, on her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was _Chicago_ by Sufjan Stevens, and sparked unexpected post-apocalytic Cassie fic. (Set some time post-Season 8 for _Stargate: SG1_ )

The day the world ends, Cassie doesn’t notice for a while, because she’s in the middle of her midterms, and exams take precedence over watching the news. The world will still be there after exams after all. It’s not until she switches her cellphone back on after her exam and it rings instantly does she remember that she ought to know better than to make presumptions like that.

“Cassandra Fraiser,” says the voice solemn voice that is oddly familiar.

“Thor?” Cassie asks, all at once confused and terrified.

“I am told that you are in Nevada. Colonel Carter has requested that I relay that it would be for the best that you get as far away from Area 51 and Cheyenne Mountain as you possibly can, as quickly as possible. I am unable to remove you to safety myself so I must ask that you promise to follow these instructions immediately.” Continues Thor, more urgently.

In the background she can here Jack’s muffled shout, “Tell Cass to get the hell out of dodge, head for Mexico and don’t look back. We’ll call her when it’s safe.”

“I promise,” whispers Cassie and hangs up. She heads for her dorm room at a run.

~

Cassie wonders afterwards if there’s a part of her that will always be a refugee because her rucksack is half packed under her bed with travel essentials. She adds a photo album, along with anything that might work as currency if society collapses. Spares a moment to wonder if all military kids do this on instinct or if surviving one apocalypse has left her subconsciously waiting for the other shoe to drop all this time. It’s not until she’s out the door with her fully packed rucksack that she thinks about the rest of her dorm mates. She walks her corridor knocking on certain doors, filtering her dorm mates for those who will reject the idea out of hand, those in exams or those with exams tomorrow they won’t risk missing. She sends silent thanks to Daniel and Jack for inventing the ‘getting to know you’ drinking game that involved the question: “I arrive with news of the zombie apocalypse what do you do?” All her closest friends are those who answered, variations on ‘grab a spade/axe and find somewhere secure and defendable’.

In the end she only manages to gather enough people to fill her car and they only make it as far as Tucson before a large chunk of Nevada becomes a very large hole in the ground. They’re on the outskirts of Chihuahua when they get the news that an equally large crater is all that remains of Colorado City. They’re in a hostel in Mexico City for two days before she cries.

Cassie cries solidly for half an hour, cleans herself up and then calls the emergency number that is ingrained in her memory. The EMP knocked out most technology that wasn’t south of the US/Mexico border but handily Sam had rigged Cassie’s phone up to run on a Goa’ld crystal that is mercifully unaffected. The fact that it’s Davis who answers confirms most of her worst fears, although it allays others. He’s refreshingly honest about where is and isn’t safe, although he is necessarily vague about the threat he doesn’t attempt to hide that it is far from over. He can give her no news of SG:1 other than that they came down somewhere along the Eastern Seaboard. She passes on what she knows to her friends and they in turn bring news from the refugees trickling into the city from the US. They talk about heading down into South America, of making the most of their currency while it still has some actual value.

They head south in Cassie’s car, heading for the equator and adventure of the non-explosive kind.

Cassie heads north in a beat up second hand van she reckons is a good investment while her savings still have value. She drives north and east, giving Colorado a wide berth. Most of the refugees from the states not directly affected (and thus quarantined) are heading either for Mexico or for Canada, so mostly she has the highways to herself. Cities are pretty much abandoned so supplies are cheap for now. Logically she knows that SG1 could be anywhere, that they might not even be on the planet anymore, but until she hears otherwise she has to look for them. She knows with utter certainty that if it was her out there lost and alone they would move heaven and earth to find her, she owes it to them to do the same. She heads for Chicago first, Jack spoke of it fondly and it’s as good a place as any to start.

There’s something therapeutic about the open road and as long as she’s driving she feels strangely at peace. She’s got a purpose and a goal, for now that’s all she needs.

On her dashboard, taped in place, rigged up to run off the car’s electrics is Cassie’s cellphone. If they are alive they will try to find her, and she knows they can trace her from the signals her phone produces so long as it’s on. And if the signal’s moving they’ll know she’s alive. If they’re alive they will call. So she keeps driving. And waiting for the call.


	10. Where My Heart Will Take Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a long road, getting from there to here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song was _Where My Heart Will Take Me_ by Russell Watson, better known as the Enterprise Theme, I really couldn’t resist writing Star Trek fic for it. Though this is reboot fic, with post-movie Gaila.

It’s quiet and calm in the lifeboat. It has to be as there may only be a few of them but they don’t know when or if rescue will be coming so oxygen supplies must be preserved. The fleet is gone, having flown straight into a trap, now its up to the _Enterprise_ alone. They’re probably the only survivors of the fleet let alone the _Farragut_ but they daren’t signal the _Enterprise_ in fear of creating a distraction that Nero can exploit.

Hours later when Vulcan implodes almost all of the survivors on the lifeboat look away but Gaila does not. She watches the planet die and grieves all those they came out here to save. In her head she repeats the appropriate words to bless the dead on Orion, words she was sure she had forgotten long ago.

Out loud she says, “my room-mate’s boyfriend was from Vulcan,” and the others leave her be. It’s not as though she and Spock were particularly close, they’d been utterly different in nature, but it had been nice sometimes to know someone who understood what it was like to be the only one of your species at the Academy. She does remember that for all Vulcans were terribly restrained these days; ancient Vulcans were experts at blood feuds. She hopes Spock makes Nero pay.

Outside the window the stars drift past and Gaila allows herself to get lost in memories as she watches them. Memories of another shuttle journey years before and of a straight forward female Starfleet officer telling her that her fate wasn’t set in stone. That she could be whatever she wanted, even a Starfleet engineer like her if she wanted. Offering practical solutions rather than pointless sentimentality. It has been a very long road from that shuttle to this one and the name of the officer is long forgotten but Gaila does remember she was Vulcan.

Gaila takes a moment to grieve her and all the other Vulcans she never knew before getting up and going to check over the propulsion units; she has work to do.


End file.
